[roby_dk]

Enough said, But I will wait for TBHP review of Mahindra Alturas before coming to any conclusion. If you consider brand image and reliability Mahindra can't stand in front of Toyota Fortuner. If you talk about dynamics, product quality and features Endeavour is still the best choice in this segment as per TBhp reviews. It is very tough to choose Alturas over Endeavour or Fortuner with merely 3-4L price difference.

[jinojohnt]

Originally Posted by sreejinair

Did you mean they should have launched the 5 seater version of Rexton thats sold in Europe?

Yes, definitely. Even the Duster can get a third row (crammed) into the current boot space and claim to be a seven seater, but you see the point. The Altura third row seems more like an afterthought to prevent customers from saying "30 lakhs and only five seats?".

[sreejinair]

Originally Posted by jinojohnt

Yes, definitely. Even the Duster can get a third row (crammed) into the current boot space and claim to be a seven seater, but you see the point. The Altura third row seems more like an afterthought to prevent customers from saying "30 lakhs and only five seats?".

My dear friend, the same European market also sells the 7 seater. They have been selling both the 5 and the 7 seater in that market. Its definitely not an after thought for the Indian market.

I believe the 2nd row seats are moveable and can also recline. One can always fold the 3rd row and voila you have a 5 seater. Throw all your luggage in and travel long distances. Put the 3rd row backup and the kids can use them for long distances and adults can use it in case of an emergency of course not suitable for adults. Same goes for other SUVs in this segment or infact any segment the 3rd row is only for kids.

There is a thread for 3rd row seats cant recollect the title, search and you will get a better idea, the last I read was Xylo was the only true 7 seater available.

[avira_tk]

I said this earlier that Toyota will go ahead and raise prices, they've announced they are doing just that, a 4% hike from January. Sangyong is too mediocre to take on the Fortuner, the best Mahindra could have done was to price the Alturas lower and get some fence sitting Innova customers lured by the suv body style.

[prakash_ajp]

Originally Posted by avira_tk

I said this earlier that Toyota will go ahead and raise prices, they've announced they are doing just that, a 4% hike from January.

Toyota will not have to worry about Alturas or for that matter the Endeavour.

Originally Posted by avira_tk

Sangyong is too mediocre to take on the Fortuner, the best Mahindra could have done was to price the Alturas lower and get some fence sitting Innova customers lured by the suv body style.

But it will help if you tell us why think the Alturas is "too mediocre". Surely, you didn't have the brand value and ASS in mind when you said that, right? If it's the product you were talking about, it will help us to know the reasoning behind your assessment.

[sreejinair]

Originally Posted by avira_tk

I said this earlier that Toyota will go ahead and raise prices, they've announced they are doing just that, a 4% hike from January. Sangyong is too mediocre to take on the Fortuner, the best Mahindra could have done was to price the Alturas lower and get some fence sitting Innova customers lured by the suv body style.

Yes bad move by Toyota, dont think the Alturas pricing has anything to do with that since the hike is on all the cars not just the fortuner. Toyota makes good vehicles no doubt about that, they are built to last and thats all. Too utilitarian with minimal features. I dont want to repeat myself again you can go back a couple of posts and checkout. Also how about the rexton being awarded the 4x4 car of the year award as per automotiveworld.com it beat the toyota land cruiser, land rover discovery and the jeep wrangler JK. Its not me its that article saying that. The article link is also there in the previous posts. Credible? you decide.

A lot of reviewers have said that the driving dynamics of Alturas is better than the Fortuner. Its not as good as the Endeavor which has been on "fire" lately. It gets far better interiors than anything else in this segment, far better features than anything else in this segment. add that 4x4 car of the year award and priced less than the segment leader. Mahindra should give a 7 year or at least a 5 year warranty for the Alturas and that should just do it.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by prakash_ajp

But it will help if you tell us why think the Alturas is "too mediocre". Surely, you didn't have the brand value and ASS in mind when you said that, right? If it's the product you were talking about, it will help us to know the reasoning behind your assessment.

The company has a history of rebadging old Mercedes models and the Rexton was just that. The current car has no pedigree whatsoever. Brand value and ASS are what makes the ownership experience, mahindra doesn't score on either. A Toyota with the odo at 5 lakh needs only regular service, brand value didn't create that, but engineering did. No need to offer a 7 year warranty unless you are trying to erase the reliability concerns that most people have.

The ride was never the Fortuner's strong point, back to back comparison with a pajero sport convinced me about that a long time ago. However, the ownership experience of Toyota owners, the ease of selling it used and the resale value simply makes it value for money. In a Toyota every feature works. In the competition, every feature is a potential failure point. More features is something that worsens the ownership experience in the competition's product.

[prakash_ajp]

Originally Posted by avira_tk

The company has a history of rebadging old Mercedes models and the Rexton was just that. The current car has no pedigree whatsoever. Brand value and ASS are what makes the ownership experience, mahindra doesn't score on either. A Toyota with the odo at 5 lakh needs only regular service, brand value didn't create that engineering did. No need to offer a 7 year warranty unless you are trying to erase the reliability concerns that most people have.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that when you said "Alturas was too mediocre", you weren't talking about the product (the car) at all. On the other hand, If it was the lack of pedigree, unknown reliability and ownership experience, I guess we knew this all along, you needn't have waited till the unveiling of the car

[PrideRed]

Originally Posted by avira_tk

I said this earlier that Toyota will go ahead and raise prices, they've announced they are doing just that, a 4% hike from January. Sangyong is too mediocre to take on the Fortuner, the best Mahindra could have done was to price the Alturas lower and get some fence sitting Innova customers lured by the suv body style.

With hike, 2.8 Z is going to cost 30lacs on road Bangalore. I believe the G2 will cost about 34-35 lacs. 4 lacs is not much but the Crysta customers are different. The Alturas rear bench seat simply cannot match the Captain seats of Crysta. The biggest threat to Alturas is the 4x2 manual Fortuner. As I hear a good chunk of Fortuner sales comes from this variant. Yes, this variant costs 35lacs on road! To me a manual variant of Alturas at 30lacs would have been a game changer.

I see a lot of people mentioning herd mentality,biased toward Fortuner/Endeavour. Well may be true for some, but not the case with many. In current age people don't buy products, but they prefer solution(or a package). Alturas might turn out to be a better product than Fortuner but can it be a better package(includes product, reliability, after sales, resale)?only time will tell.

[avira_tk]

Originally Posted by prakash_ajp

Okay, thanks for clarifying that when you said "Alturas was too mediocre", you weren't talking about the product (the car) at all. On the other hand, If it was the lack of pedigree, unknown reliability and ownership experience, I guess we knew this all along, you needn't have waited till the unveiling of the car

You could list the reasons, why this wonderful product, that feels like a pickup, no rave reviews about the ride in any foreign publication, except Indian ones, should be a good alternative to the Fortuner. The only reason why people waited for the price is that they thought being a mahindra, it'll be the bargain option. The reason it's fully loaded is because its got nothing else going for it. People buying in this segment can't tolerate downtime, Toyota guarantees that, along with cost of maintenance at a few segments' lower level. 7 year warranty with free replacement taking a few weeks to complete isn't going to cut it.

No one's going to ignore the brand at this price point, also, the MUX which is around the same price offers pretty much similar ownership, except that Isuzu engines are as good as Toyota ones.

[PrasunBannerjee]

Originally Posted by avira_tk

, Toyota guarantees that, along with cost of maintenance at a few segments' lower level. 7 year warranty with free replacement taking a few weeks to complete isn't going to cut it.

+1. I went to a Toyota dealership a couple of weeks back to check the Fortuner out. They were so confident on the product that they didn't even have a TD vehicle. Not even one on display. All they did was show us around on a car in their yard to get the look and feel and that's it. And they were continuously pushing on the reliability factor above everything, and the dealership was happily comparing the Service and maintenance costs of 40 lac Fortuner with less than half the price Scorpio and Safari, and even there, Fortuner had lesser cost of maintenance

That's come crazy confidence on the product. No wonder why it sells itself. Trivia: there was No Toyota dealership in my city for almost a year as previous one shut down. This happened when crysta and new gen fortuner were launched. The upcoming dealership had only a small office setup without any vehicle at all to even display. And there still were a huge flow of crystas and fortuners in the town. People were blindly buying it without even having a look at the product in flesh.


Coming to the Alturas, I feel coming to the product, enough has been said on pricing already. One big trouble that i find is having no side steps. Most of Tier-2/3/4 people who can afford these are lesser of the youth and more of the people in mid 40s and 50s. Also, most of these people don't use it as an offroader but more as an MUV (for moving with family; elderly included). At least company should put this as an official accessory.

[civic-sense]

A 35L Mahindra? No thanks! They might be able to sell this to a handful of diehard Mahindra fans who also happen to have some unused money lying around, but otherwise, this thing is not going to sell.

Mahindra might have done better by retaining the Ssangyong badge and attracted a few curious buyers, but this rebadging is not even going to return the money they spend redesigning the front grill.

Sad, but this one is a fail too.

[R2D2]

I guess people know Mahindra took a controlling stake in SSangyong in 2011-12. So, 35 big ones for this Mahindra-SSangyong product? This is silly pricing! What the heck are they thinking?! And they highlight the inclusion of a M-B gearbox to make it sound posh. Yeah, as attractive a USP like the Tempo Traveller mini bus and the Trax highlighting the presence of the Mercedes-Benz OM616 engine.

If I had to choose between Toyota and Mahindra-Ssangyong SUV no prizes for guessing who my hard earned money goes to. The tried and tested Toyota Fortuner that will serve me well for over a decade come rain, wind or sunshine with the real solid aftersales service and support of Toyota to back me up. The Ford Endeavour may be the second option. This Rexton/Alturas has no chance of making it to my garage.

M&M need to rethink their strategy even if they want guinea pigs at this price level. A reality check is in order.

[raj_5004]

Originally Posted by civic-sense

A 35L Mahindra? No thanks! They might be able to sell this to a handful of diehard Mahindra fans who also happen to have some unused money lying around, but otherwise, this thing is not going to sell.

Originally Posted by R2D2

So, 35 big ones for this Mahindra-SSangyong product? This is silly pricing! What the heck are they thinking?!

Thanks to such thinking, we can be rest assured that Indian automobile brands will have no scope to rise to the top on an international level, ever!

We love to shame our home grown products so much that we miss to give them a fair chance to compete.

Let the car come out, let us see the Team-Bhp review or comparo reviews from other publications and then bash the Alturas for being a Mahindra. We will have plenty of opportunities!

[RaghuVis]

Four days is enough time to guage reaction from other members in the forum and be ready with my Gyaan so here it goes.
I agree with the general perception that this is not going to sell much. But for the first time, I can see why the Mahindra is not much concerned about it.
Here are my points.

1) It is a CKD assembled here. This might be one of the least invested car for them in recent times. Even the Tivoli based S201 is having much higher investment as well as detailed production line with parts made in India. So definitely they don't have a big target.
2) No matter how much they price it lesser than Fortuner/Endeavour, hardcore fans are not going to bite the bullet. In a segment of 2500 cars, their target is to get 10% which is close to 250 units. While that was never going to happen how they price, the max they might have gotten with a shocker price is just about 50 units more than what they are going to get now. The extra revenue they are going to earn with the current price will definitely offset that.
3) Big chunk of that 2500 cars in the segment is being lapped up by politicians. They are not going to get anything other than Fortuner for sure in this segment so there is not much pie grabbing from competitors.
4) G2 is Aproximately 5L on road cheaper than Fortuner(Source: Cardekho Delhi Price). G2 is much loaded against the 2.8 2WD AT (Not Base). How much cheaper were you expecting?
5) G4 is Aproximately 3.8L on road cheaper than Fortuner (Source: Cardekho Delhi Price). Again G4 is much loaded against the 2.8 4WD AT. Again the difference is not a peanuts. For those who think 4L is peanuts, they are never going to look at G2 or G4 in the first place.
6) G2 is Aproximately 4.25L on road cheaper than Endeavour 2.2 Titanium (Source: Cardekho Delhi Price). You have to agree Ford is definitely not as reliable as Toyota.
7) G4 is Aproximately 3.4L on road cheaper than Endeavour 3.2 Titanium (Source: Cardekho Delhi Price). Someone who can spare 3.5L will chip in another 1.5 and go for Fortuner anways.
8) Trump card that Mahindra has right now which most have not realized is that engine is rumored to be BS VI Comliant . If you look at the emissions thread, most of them are speculating that bigger engines on Ford/Toyota needs at least 2.5L/3L extra investment. Add that to the on road difference in 15 months time.
9) Mahindra will definitely release Manual trims in another 6-9 months with lesser price. Since the gerabox will be in house unlike the AT gearbox sourced from MB, they can definitely be more aggressive and trust me they will.
10) The biggest trump card is to elevate the value of Brand Mahindra so that next Gen XUV can be priced much higher than now with lesser shock. By then Harrier and H7X would have also be available to compare.

Ultimately we need to know how good the car is. Hopefully we will get a detailed review by new year in our forum and then lets see. Hope this doesn't repeat an Aria or S-Cross1.6. Even if it does, Mahindra would not have burnt their pockets much. The main problem in my opinion is that almost no one has anything good to say about previous gen Rexton. It was really unreliable, parts were very expensive and procuring them was even a bigger headache. One of my ex colleague sold it under 1 year because of these 3 sore points. Lets see how Mahindra fares here.